Programmes and technical cooperation in agriculture – focus on south-south cooperation

Bangkok – The Republic of Indonesia will provide experts and technicians as well as inputs, tools and equipment to improve productivity of small-scale farmers in developing countries, in cooperation with FAO. A Letter of Intent to this effect was signed today in Bangkok by the Indonesian minister of agriculture Anton Apriyantono and FAO director-general Jacques Diouf.

Under the agreement, Indonesia will strengthen national and regional programmes for food security designed by selected developing countries – with the assistance of FAO – aimed at achieving the World Food Summit and Millennium Development goals.

Since the 2002 World Food Summit, FAO has embarked on a programme for assisting countries and regional economic integration organizations to formulate national and regional programmes for food security that covered the full range of actions needed to increase their food productivity.

Today's agreement is a follow-up to the discussions between FAO and the Indonesian delegation during the June 2008 High-level Conference on World Food Security in Rome.

Specific tripartite cooperation agreements – to be developed between the recipient country, Indonesia and FAO - will further define the modalities of the assistance.

Key player
"This agreement underlines the key role which Indonesia has played in the global arena, in particular since the 1980s," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf.

Indonesia has been providing technical cooperation through FAO to countries in Asia, Africa and the Pacific over the last 10 years.

Examples of past Indonesia-FAO south-south cooperation during the period 1998 to 2002 are the establishment of agriculture and rural training centres in the Gambia and Tanzania.

Indonesian assistance concentrated on training programmes and apprenticeships, the fielding of Indonesian experts to other countries, and the donation of farm tools such as hand tractors and water pumps.

Through FAO’s south-south cooperation programme, developing countries help each other through transfer of knowledge, personnel and technologies.